Another season of Boardwalk Empire, another season of watching characters die or leave the show. Mostly die. Actually, the number of dead or departed characters approached Game of Thrones-levels. This season, Chalkie White (Michael Kenneth Williams) faces the threat of Doctor Valentin Narcisse (Jeffrey Wright), a gangster from Harlem, who plans to expand into Atlantic City, and is the first character on the show to question the social order that made African-Americans second-class citizens. Read More…

Following the dramatic end to the civil war for control for Atlantic City, the series has expanded its focus outwards, devoting more attention to the underworld in Chicago and New York, as well as the corruption in the national capital. Season three starts in 1923, roughly a year after the end of season two. Enoch ‘Nucky’ Thompson (Steve Buscemi) has gained firm control of Atlantic City. Pressured by his government contacts to sell to a single customer to reduce attention, Nucky decides that Arnold Rothstein (Michael Stuhlbarg) will be his sole customer, which leads to war with Gyp Rosetti (Bobby Cannavale), an astonishingly thin-skinned gangster from New York, who resents Rothstein’s new monopoly. Read More…

Season Two of Boardwalk Empire balances the fine line between an entertaining soap opera set in Prohibition-era Atlantic City and a chronicle of bootlegging and the rapid social changes that made the 1920s such a turbulent period in American history. Read More…

I have to admit that I was underwhelmed by the much-touted pilot episode directed by Martin Scorsese, but after watching a few more episodes, the series is growing on me. I would have thought that a period gangster series would be right up Scorsese’s alley, but I just realized that I have come to expect a certain style from HBO and Scorsese’s lack of a sense of humor dragged down the pilot. Although I originally checked the show out because of the gangsters and Prohibition, I am more interested in its portrayal of the time. Read More…